Lipid peroxidation in the brain of rats differing in resistance to emotional stress

Abstract

It is found for each of the rat brain regions studied (cerebral cortex, subjacent white substance, and brainstem) that both the initial levels of 2-thiobarbituric acid-reactive products and the rates of their increment are highest in rats resistant to emotional stress and lowest in stress-prone rats, and that the rates at which lipid peroxidation products accumulate are highest in the brainstem and lowest in the white substance. A correlation is presumed to exist between individual resistance to cerebral ischemia and the rate of lipid peroxidation in particular brain regions of healthy rats.